np: XY OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Ghost of Perdition

[Lil YoshiXD]

I feel like this thread has really derailed, and I'm kind of sad to see so much hate and controversy going around.

I think the bottom line is that Aegislash is a controversial pokemon since it cannot be countered reliably by almost any pokemon in OU. However, by maintaining the ability to destroy any of its counters, it loses coverage, items, or the standard sets that make it great.

Lures have existed in pokemon for a long time. But Aegislash takes it to a new level. However, I think by utilizing team preview and proper scouting, you can predict Aegislash's set or lose one pokemon that counter with the appropriate pokemon. This isn't much different than many other lures.

In reviewing this thread, it's become even more obvious to me that Aegislash should not be banned, the people constructing pro-ban arguments and the amount of controversy in the thread makes me think it would be better to keep it around in the meta. It just feels like the pro-ban people are pretty biased with how much hate and anger is coming from their side of the argument. This makes me worried about their potential position.

First of all I agree this thread has derailed and please don't take this as an attack. I feel its very unfair to categorize all pro-ban people as angry biased people. Their are plenty of pro-ban people (myself included) that just think its an unhealthy pokemon for the meta and is broken for reasons already stated. Also, there has been plenty of hate and bias from the anti-ban side. "Aegislash is my favorite pokemon you guys are stupid for wanting to ban that" I'm not saying all anti-ban people are like that, in fact very few are. Most of the people posting here will most likely not make suspect reqs. Heck I've seen some people saying they haven't even played suspect. There is just a lot of ignorance and and incorrect information going around. Instead of attacking the people with ignorance try to be patient with them and calmly explain why they are wrong or just plain ignore them. Most of the pro-banners have already made their thoughts clear in some of the earlier posts with quite detailed reasoning. I suggest you look at some of these earlier posts to see why most of the people voting for ban will be doing so. Its get really frustrating arguing with people that think just throw a fire type onto your team and aegislash is countered.

Remember all pokemon is just a game. No need to attack others over it. Those of us that want it banned do so because we think the game will be more fun without aegislash, not because we have some deeply hidden vendetta against it.

 

[HBK]

I don't think that any pokemon should be banned just because it causes too many 50-50s. Scarf Tyranitar/trapper Bisharp cause 50-50s with Latis, Gengar, etc. all the time so does that mean that we should ban them too? 50-50s, like hax, are a part of the game and one of the things that make this game so exciting to play; they're the stuff that great battles are made of!
As for Aegislash's versatility, the sets that are tailored to beat it's counters can be beaten by most pokemon due to their specialized approach so the loss of an "Aegislash check" doesn't exactly spell gg for a player, not to mention the fact that they're extremely rare. As for the standard set which is actually threatening to a wide range of pokemon, one always knows that it's running Shadow Ball, Kings Shield and Sacred Sword so it's just a question of scouting to find out the fourth move (and they are walled by the standard Aegislash checks). And scouting Aegislash is much easier and less risky than doing the same with say, Deoxys-S or Lucario. Lucario could sweep you if you misjudged it's set, Deoxys-S could do the same later in the game if you didn't save the right pokemon but it's much harder for Aegislash to do the same because it is NOT broken.

People keep listing King's Shield as one of Aegislash's assets but what they seem to forget is that it's also a crippling weakness that can be used against it more often than not. It also happens to lack a reliable recovery move which means that it can be easily worn down with hazards, Pursuit and all kinds of moves.

I was against banning it before I began laddering, and I have seen nothing that would change my mind.

 

[I AM THE JAMAICAN BOBSLED TEAM]

Support Characteristic
A Pokemon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it can consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other Pokemon to sweep.

people seem to be overlooking this. while it may not meet the offensive characteristic, it imo fits this one. aegi has so many different sets, all of which can be tailor-made to the team which can allow a pokemon on said team to sweep, without sacrificing ANY efficiency. lets look at some sets it can run, with possible variations:

Aegislash @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 240 HP / 12 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Sacred Sword/Iron Head/Pursuit
- Shadow Sneak/Pursuit
- King's Shield

This set is the most common Aegislash set there is. It has coverage, power, and the ability to be tailor-made for its team. it can switch in, launch off a powerful attack with very few resists. as such, this set has centralized the meta around it, so it is over prepared for.

Counters:
Mandibuzz
Amoonguss
Heatran
Ferrothorn
SDef Gliscor
CBBNite


Now, lets look at another.

Aegislash @ Life Orb/Air Balloon
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Head Smash/Iron Head
- Shadow Sneak/Shadow Claw
- Sacred Sword/Iron Head

This is a set commonly brought up in this thread, so I might as well analyze it too. As you noticed, it too has the ability to be tailor made for its team. Someone actually linked a video earlier in this thread, might check that out. So anyways, lets try to list some counters. THIS SET CAN BE USED AS A WALLBREAKER AND LATE-GAME CLEANER.

Counters:
NOTE: ONLY QUAGSIRE COUNTERS IF SET UP
Skarmory
Quagsire
Landorus-T


Finally, there is one more good Aegislash set.

Aegislash @ Life Orb
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Shadow Sneak/Pursuit/HP Ice
- Sacred Sword
- Flash Cannon/Iron Head

Another set brought up a lot, so i might as well touch on this one too. As you noticed, not as much editing can be done as the other sets, but can still be tailor-made for its team. So anyways, lets also list some counters.

Counters:
Amoonguss
Stall Charizard-X



So, the point I have to get across here, is that it can support its team with tailor-made sets that don't sacrifice any efficiency and are really consistent. Also, a side note, there is no universal counter to its sets. Therefore, I am pro-ban.

 

[Starfall11]

First of all I agree this thread has derailed and please don't take this as an attack. I feel its very unfair to categorize all pro-ban people as angry biased people. Their are plenty of pro-ban people (myself included) that just think its an unhealthy pokemon for the meta and is broken for reasons already stated. Also, there has been plenty of hate and bias from the anti-ban side. "Aegislash is my favorite pokemon you guys are stupid for wanting to ban that" I'm not saying all anti-ban people are like that, in fact very few are. Most of the people posting here will most likely not make suspect reqs. Heck I've seen some people saying they haven't even played suspect. There is just a lot of ignorance and and incorrect information going around. Instead of attacking the people with ignorance try to be patient with them and calmly explain why they are wrong or just plain ignore them. Most of the pro-banners have already made their thoughts clear in some of the earlier posts with quite detailed reasoning. I suggest you look at some of these earlier posts to see why most of the people voting for ban will be doing so. Its get really frustrating arguing with people that think just throw a fire type onto your team and aegislash is countered.

Remember all pokemon is just a game. No need to attack others over it. Those of us that want it banned do so because we think the game will be more fun without aegislash, not because we have some deeply hidden vendetta against it.

No offense taken. I didn't mean to generalize all pro-ban people as having a vendetta against Aegislash. My apologies since looking back, it was construed that way. It was moreso the fact that in recent posts, it seems like people were arguing more with personal bias that previously. I think the best pro-ban argument for Aegislash is that it lacks reliable counters. But I do feel it's healthy for the meta since it takes creativity and prediction to utilize correctly.

I just thought it was interesting to bring up, since I think something is unhealthy for the meta when it severely limits teambuilding.I do not feel Aegislash limits teambuilding since all of sets can be reliably checkedwith a balanced pokemon team. As a result, you'll rarely lose more than one pokemon to it.

I agree with your points though LilYoshi. It's better to tackle these issues with patience and explanation than annoyance or frustration.

Subject 18 Edit: I already said that this thread it for Aegislash, talking about the unhealthiness of other Pokemon has no place in this thread.

Edit: Sorry Subject 18. I brought Tflame up as a comparison of what I thought limits teambuilding. I even stated that it was unrelated to the thread, and I didn't mean to detract from it. My apologies.

 

[9 Tales of Ninetales]

Alright, when I first started on reading through this thread I was pretty uncertain how I felt about Aegislash’s OU status. But after a lot of sifting through pretty uninformative strongly opinionates posts filled with a billion unnecessary damage calcs. I’ve tried to get myself as informed as possible and do a lot of critical thinking. After all that I think I’ve finally fallen off the fence into a specific camp.

It starts with this really good read of a post that Hautner linked to many pages ago: the OP of this thread.

So I read through this thread and I considered what teiring is and what it means… Imagine a world without Smogon. Competitive Pokémon would be Ubers, actually It wouldn’t just be Ubers it would be Ubers with a bunch of moody Snorunts and Darkrai putting 6 Pokémon to sleep. Everyone would have a Kyogre, Arceus, Darkrai, Xerenas, maybe Lugia, maybe Moody Crap and everyone would have to put up with all of it. So the point of bans is to move the game more towards the qualities in the thread Haunter linked: competitive-ness, variety, balance, stability, skill requirement, etc. It’s why we separate OU from Uber, UU from OU, and so on and so on. Each subsequent tier gives more players more options and more variety without sacrificing competitive spirit. It’s not like Pokémon HAS to be broken down into lower tiers to be competitive, but we do it because that way OU is your chance to get really competitive without HAVING to put Arceus on your team.

So striving for those above qualities, and creating a competitive community not isolated to just 15 specific Pokémon out of 700 some. With those concepts in mind I think Aegislash does not belong in OU. I've read through a lot of good reasoning from the Anti-Ban crowd. Anytime someone tries to display a trait of Aegislash’s as broken the anti-ban crowd shoots it down and does a great job. It has high attack stats but lower BP moves, it doesn't truly have base 720 stats, lol at Head Smash, 50/50s aren't truly 50/50s (albeit this potentially goes both ways as it does for all guessing games in Pokémon and I still feel that King Shield is a slightly different beast), and yes Aegislash has a limited number of checks. All this is true, and any pro-ban person who argues otherwise should lose if the anti-ban defender knows what they’re talking about.

It’s been said a lot that Aegislash isn’t broken, what makes it ban-able is its combination of all its not quite broken but extremely excellent traits. It’s just a little bit too good. But even more than that I think it’s the combination of those traits in the existing metagame. If you really are being competitive, making every single team building decision purely on “what’s best” and not “which mons and playstyles do I like” you will have a REALLY hard time not putting Aegi on your team. It will get what you want to get done done, your enemies have to go more out of the way to handle it then most big name threats, it presence give you a reliable fall back in so many situations when the momentum isn't in your favor, It switches into more moves from more Pokemon that almost anything else, and it doesn't even take up your mega slot. Putting Aegi on your team is about as easy and as helpful as putting stealth rocks on a member of your team.

Imagine what the metagame would be like if any one Uber-mon was still not banned, especially some of the most recently banned ones. They’re beatable perhaps, there might be checks to some of them including obscure things, but would you really not put them on your team if you intend to win? Would you really expect other people to do the same if they intend to win? and don’t you now have to really prepare for them using up limited slots on your team with things that might even be 'kind of' obscure and useless otherwise? Aegi’s presence is more akin to the presence of any other Uber than it is to any other OU-mon. Not as extreme of course, I'm not saying Aegislash is "centralizing" the way M-blazekin would be or something, but I 'm saying Aegi's impact looks more like that than the impact of *insert other OU-mon* I think its presence is negatively impacting a few of the… “motivations” for even breaking Pokemon into tiers at all. Mostly Variety but also Balance to some degree and on a minor minor level Skill (king’s shield is not a 50/50 I know, but different from other guessing games). Aegi doesn't just constrain team building in the sense that you have to prepare for it, but it constrains team building in the sense that most of the time you should be using it. All those large scale impacts, are the reason it should not be in OU.

 

[RoyalDispenser]

Aegislash @ Leftovers
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 240 HP / 12 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Sacred Sword/Iron Head/Pursuit
- Shadow Sneak/Pursuit
- King's Shield

This set is the most common Aegislash set there is. It has coverage, power, and the ability to be tailor-made for its team. it can switch in, launch off a powerful attack with very few resists. as such, this set has centralized the meta around it, so it is over prepared for.

Counters:
Mandibuzz
Amoonguss
Heatran
Ferrothorn
SDef Gliscor
CBBNite

Let me add somemore..

Rotom-w; Can burn, trick, and doesn't care for shadowball.
Bisharp; If it can safely enter or outpredict SS, it will guarantee either an attack boost, dead aegislash, or knock off a switch in's item..
Weavile; Same case as bisharp.. night slash can be a big gamble but it's spammable due to high crit rate.
Breloom; Has sash and can spore.
Venasaur; Leech seed+synthesis stall on defensive sets.
Chesnaught; immune to shadow ball, physically bulky, can leech seed.

Now, lets look at another.

Aegislash @ Life Orb/Air Balloon
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Head Smash/Iron Head
- Shadow Sneak/Shadow Claw
- Sacred Sword/Iron Head

This is a set commonly brought up in this thread, so I might as well analyze it too. As you noticed, it too has the ability to be tailor made for its team. Someone actually linked a video earlier in this thread, might check that out. So anyways, lets try to list some counters. THIS SET CAN BE USED AS A WALLBREAKER AND LATE-GAME CLEANER.

Counters:
NOTE: ONLY QUAGSIRE COUNTERS IF SET UP
Skarmory
Quagsire
Landorus-T

It requires stealth rocks on the field to OHKO mandibuzz.. the one pokemon head smash is ran for. It needs a little team support to successfully lure not to mention mandibuzz can just roost or knock off if it gets a free switch in. Easy to revenge kill should it manage to succeed in the job. This set works a little worse than cloyster.. While typing maybe the advantage.. cloyster can easily shell smash, outspeed, and successfully sweep (sometimes..) late game.. difference is cloyster has better defenses to setup.. If this set was aegislash's only set, it'd be a lower rank than cloyster rather than S-rank.. which honestly is a really bad argument to bring up trying to bring him all the way up to ubers and out of our current meta.

Also with this set, running no defenses also let's more things OHKO it.. it gives aegislash a method of killing it's only true checks/counters.. while leaving it wide open to others. This makes him a frail glass cannon.. infact chandelure and porygon-z could be comparable and even outclass this set.

Anything fast like jolteon, greninja, crobat, etc.. don't care for a +2 life orb shadow sneak and can easily revenge kill it. Some NSE hits can even OHKO it..

Finally, there is one more good Aegislash set.

Aegislash @ Life Orb
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Shadow Sneak/Pursuit/HP Ice
- Sacred Sword
- Flash Cannon/Iron Head

Another set brought up a lot, so i might as well touch on this one too. As you noticed, not as much editing can be done as the other sets, but can still be tailor-made for its team. So anyways, lets also list some counters.

Counters:
Amoonguss
Stall Charizard-X

I don't know when this set was ever brought up.. but it's even worse.. this is the samething as above but even frailer and no worries about SD.

 

[Shadowmana9]

SD boost..

+2 252 Atk Life Orb Aegislash-Blade Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 232+ Def Skarmory: 272-320 (81.4 - 95.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Now you killed skarmory, something heatran or a much better pokemon could do.. and you're at half health..+double life orb damage!

Now at +2 and life orb what can you achieve?

+2 252 Atk Life Orb Aegislash-Blade Shadow Sneak vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Greninja: 131-155 (45.8 - 54.1%) -- 47.7% chance to 2HKO

+2 252 Atk Life Orb Aegislash-Blade Shadow Sneak vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Talonflame: 251-296 (84.2 - 99.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (Requires stealth rocks..)

+2 252 Atk Life Orb Aegislash-Blade Shadow Sneak vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Breloom: 227-269 (86.6 - 102.6%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO

+2 252 Atk Life Orb Aegislash-Blade Sacred Sword vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 338-398 (96 - 113%) -- 75% chance to OHKO (Add that iron barbs+rocky helm to your head smash recoil..)

+2 252 Atk Life Orb Aegislash-Blade Shadow Sneak vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Pinsir: 161-191 (59.4 - 70.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+2 252 Atk Life Orb Aegislash-Blade Shadow Sneak vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Terrakion: 208-246 (64.3 - 76.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+2 252 Atk Life Orb Aegislash-Blade Shadow Sneak vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Keldeo: 208-246 (64.3 - 76.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I'm done as calcs which it seems you fail to acknowledge are just spam at this point.

So what did you achieve.. pulled off a sword's dance. Revealed your set, got half your health removed trying to remove mandibuzz/skarmory, and then life orb further killing you, leave yourselve in blade forme since SD sets NEVER carries king's shield.. which would be stance dance and we disguessed how bad that can be... And now you can't OHKO, or in some cases aren't guarenteed to 2HKO pretty much every revenge killer in the game.. not even just revenge killers..

This is just as gimmicky as cloyster.. even if you get to sweeping potentional it goes no where.. you can baton pass a singe SD+2 speed boost to aegislash using scolipede if you want.. you're still so easy to revenge kill and end the sweep.

Oh btw.. just run shadow ball or flash cannon on a mixed set.. at +0 it'll do better damage and no recoil..



Actually what I was trying to point out earlier is rotom wash DOES have reliable recovery with chesto-rest set and being capable of furthering it's bulk much higher than slash with a burn.. and only 1 weakness being the very rare and usually slow grass type. Aegislash could never utilize a such set or a rest talk set as he has no method of furthering his bulk outside gimmicky iron defense (Uh oh.. some people will arguement that iron defense is a thing since it was mentoned. What have I done!)

My apologies. I must have miss read.

 

[Giometry]

To me it seems that the reason Aegislash has been so controversial is the fact that a suspect like this is unprecedented. We have never banned anything quite like Aegislash in the history of Smogon, nor have we truly had anything like it in the metagame(s) (the closest comparisons I can think of are Generation 5 Jirachi with its immense versatility and early Gen 6 Rotom-W). As such It's individual qualities do not truly make it broken, just near perfect in the OU Meta. I do not think we should ban something for being perfect at what it does when each role that it can fill is not particularly broken. In fact, it is not even the best pokemon in OU for filling any of those roles except for its pivot/tank set. None of its individual sets are broken, have common checks (Lando, Zards, Exca, Bisharp etc.) and do have some viable counters (Amoonguss, SpDef Gliscor) in this manner shall compare it to Gen 5 Jirachi. Jirachi had even more sets than Aegi, could fulfill almost any role, also had universal checks and weaknesses to the common fire and ground types and the then fairly common ghost type (dark was not a weakness of Jirachi yet). Just as Jirachi was no where near broken in Gen 5 (Just extremely good) Aegislash is not broken this gen (just extremely good) and even though it is extremely good I do not feel that being extremely good is worthy of a ban. It is not broken, it does not restrict teambuilding (as most of its checks will already be on your team due to their own merits), The comparisons to Rotom-W have already been made by players throughout the spectrum. Although I won't be able to reach reqs for this suspect test (was in France for the first week of the test) I would like to state my opinion of Do Not Ban.

Edit: In regards to the no counters posts I would like to point out the existence of Mega Venusaur, Amoongus, and SpDef Gliscor

 

[InfinityX000]

Alright, when I first started on reading through this thread I was pretty uncertain how I felt about Aegislash’s OU status. But after a lot of sifting through pretty uninformative strongly opinionates posts filled with a billion unnecessary damage calcs. I’ve tried to get myself as informed as possible and do a lot of critical thinking. After all that I think I’ve finally fallen off the fence into a specific camp.

It starts with this really good read of a post that Hautner linked to many pages ago: the OP of this thread.

So I read through this thread and I considered what teiring is and what it means… Imagine a world without Smogon. Competitive Pokémon would be Ubers, actually It wouldn’t just be Ubers it would be Ubers with a bunch of moody Snorunts and Darkrai putting 6 Pokémon to sleep. Everyone would have a Kyogre, Arceus, Darkrai, Xerenas, maybe Lugia, maybe Moody Crap and everyone would have to put up with all of it. So the point of bans is to move the game more towards the qualities in the thread Haunter linked: competitive-ness, variety, balance, stability, skill requirement, etc. It’s why we separate OU from Uber, UU from OU, and so on and so on. Each subsequent tier gives more players more options and more variety without sacrificing competitive spirit. It’s not like Pokémon HAS to be broken down into lower tiers to be competitive, but we do it because that way OU is your chance to get really competitive without HAVING to put Arceus on your team.

So striving for those above qualities, and creating a competitive community not isolated to just 15 specific Pokémon out of 700 some. With those concepts in mind I think Aegislash does not belong in OU. I've read through a lot of good reasoning from the Anti-Ban crowd. Anytime someone tries to display a trait of Aegislash’s as broken the anti-ban crowd shoots it down and does a great job. It has high attack stats but lower BP moves, it doesn't truly have base 720 stats, lol at Head Smash, 50/50s aren't truly 50/50s (albeit this potentially goes both ways as it does for all guessing games in Pokémon and I still feel that King Shield is a slightly different beast), and yes Aegislash has a limited number of checks. All this is true, and any pro-ban person who argues otherwise should lose if the anti-ban defender knows what they’re talking about.

It’s been said a lot that Aegislash isn’t broken, what makes it ban-able is its combination of all its not quite broken but extremely excellent traits. It’s just a little bit too good. But even more than that I think it’s the combination of those traits in the existing metagame. If you really are being competitive, making every single team building decision purely on “what’s best” and not “which mons and playstyles do I like” you will have a REALLY hard time not putting Aegi on your team. It will get what you want to get done done, your enemies have to go more out of the way to handle it then most big name threats, it presence give you a reliable fall back in so many situations when the momentum isn't in your favor, It switches into more moves from more Pokemon that almost anything else, and it doesn't even take up your mega slot. Putting Aegi on your team is about as easy and as helpful as putting stealth rocks on a member of your team.

Imagine what the metagame would be like if any one Uber-mon was still not banned, especially some if the most recently banned ones. They’re beatable perhaps, there might be checks to some of them including obscure things, but would you really not put them on your team if you intend to win? Would you really expect other people to do the same if they intend to win? and don’t you now have to really prepare for them using up limited slots on your team with things that might even be 'kind of' obscure and useless otherwise? Aegi’s presence is more akin to the presence of any other Uber than it is to any other OU-mon. Not as extreme of course, I'm not saying Aegislash is "centralizing" the way M-blazekin would be or something, but I 'm saying Aegi's impact looks more like that than the impact of *insert other OU-mon* I think its presence is negatively impacting a few of the… “motivations” for even breaking Pokemon into tiers at all. Mostly Variety but also Balance to some degree and on a minor minor level Skill (king’s shield is not a 50/50 I know, but different from other guessing games). Aegi doesn't just constrain team building in the sense that you have to prepare for it, but it constrains team building in the sense that most of the time you should be using it. All those large scale impacts, are the reason it should not be in OU.

I find this to be possibly the most convincing pro-ban argument, and I fully respect it. However, I disagree, and here is why. I feel that while it is a very strong pokemon and if you are truly playing to win hard not to run, it is still checkable. In addition, I feel like it is a healthy presence for the metagame, regardless of being good. It doesn't take too much viability away from anything that would be viable without it, and it adds a lot of viability to pokes that kinda need it, such as Diggersby. Diggersby is a good pokemon due to its STAB EQ and Return coupled with its Huge Power, but its base stats are not amazing. But being able to successfully check Aegis gives it much more viability, but isn't the only thing keeping it viable. Similar case for Hippowdon. Aegis takes some viability away from Mega Gardevoir and the Latis, but not so much that they aren't good anymore. I am personally happy that the Latis are sightly less common. But here are what I feel are the biggest reasons. The first reason is that the metagame feels very balanced. I am a believer in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". The other reason is that being good and common and viable for many teams, i feel, isn't enough to ban, especially considering that the metagame feels fine, and that (in my opinion), Aegis brings some good to the metagame.

 

[I AM THE JAMAICAN BOBSLED TEAM]

RoyalDispenser let me knock down your points, but let me acknowledge the correct ones: chesnaught and venusaur do counter

Now let me knock down your points


Rotom-W are physically defensive and good sets don't run trick. Bisharp and Weavile are checks, and Weavile doesn't even pass as a check because of King's Shield. Next, this is probably the most misinformed paragraph i have ever seen in this thread:

It requires stealth rocks on the field to OHKO mandibuzz.. the one pokemon head smash is ran for. It needs a little team support to successfully lure not to mention mandibuzz can just roost or knock off if it gets a free switch in. Easy to revenge kill should it manage to succeed in the job. This set works a little worse than cloyster.. While typing maybe the advantage.. cloyster can easily shell smash, outspeed, and successfully sweep (sometimes..) late game.. difference is cloyster has better defenses to setup.. If this set was aegislash's only set, it'd be a lower rank than cloyster rather than S-rank.. which honestly is a really bad argument to bring up trying to bring him all the way up to ubers and out of our current meta.

Also with this set, running no defenses also let's more things OHKO it.. it gives aegislash a method of killing it's only true checks/counters.. while leaving it wide open to others. This makes him a frail glass cannon.. infact chandelure and porygon-z could be comparable and even outclass this set.

Anything fast like jolteon, greninja, crobat, etc.. don't care for a +2 life orb shadow sneak and can easily revenge kill it. Some NSE hits can even OHKO it..

Let me just tear it down. You use swords dance on the Mandibuzz switch in, and because Mandibuzz runs bulk>speed, it doesn't outspeed it after the Swords Dance. Mandibuzz dead. Next, the entire line is ridden with false facts. Cloyster never sweeps against a good team. not to mention, its typing and bulk is ass. it only has better physical defense, and literally its only resist is ice. so that bulk is USELESS. add to the fact its HP and SDef are abysmal, it can't setup OR sweep. not to mention, Aegislash's attack and overall base power of its moves is higher than cloyster. and its defensive stats are still 300+ while uninvested in shield form. it uses those absurd defensive stats to set up, and then it uses the speed and power to break OR sweep. not to mention, it can do this consistently throughout the match, so it can break something and do a late game sweep later. and chandelure and porygon Z are not even close to comparable to Aegislash. Chandelure is frailer and a bit weaker, porygon z is frail and can't switch in. now with your reasoning you'll say uninvested aegislash can't switch in either, but it can due to great uninvested bulk and resistances. also, jolteon and crobat aren't anywhere near viable, and for the record, jolteon dies to +2 shadow sneak. so does crobat. Greninja can't switch in, and you seem to be forgetting Aegislash isn't a one man army, it has teammates it's supporting and in turn support it.

Subject 18 Edit: Lets be a little less rude.

 

[Jukain]

jirachi is a faulty comparison because jirachi was nowhere near as good as aegislash is. like jirachi had numerous checks/counters to all of its sets that overlapped, and didn't have such great bulk without a lot of investment, nor such a limited pool of checks/counters. it did not shift viability, it did not centralize, it did none of the things aegislash does besides be really fucking good. i don't think we should ban pokemon for being perfect either, but aegislash is more than perfect. it's centralizing, has a limited pool of checks/counters, and forces numerous arbitrary decisions in the way of 50/50s. these traits are what push aegislash from perfect, the best pokemon in the tier, to banworthy. it is not any individual set, but the combination of its sets that it can tailor to its team, that together are banworthy. Giometry you seem to be trying to consolidate to one broken asset, but that doesn't take into account a pokemon as a sum of its traits and overall effect on the metagame.

oh and please, stop calling head smash bad. it's a good lure/hole puncher used by high-level players, it is certainly effective and deadly.

finally, i want anyone who's against a ban due to the balancing effect it creates to read this. the ultimate goal is a desirable metagame with balance, diversity, and skill (subjective, but objective characteristics). it's a disservice to keep a pokemon so good that it creates almost a sense of balance, for fear of what will happen afterwards. logic would follow that the best course of action is to remove the pokemon restricting these characteristics. the sense of balance it creates is irrelevant because it is better to have a more desirable metagame with more bans, than to have a less desirable metagame with less bans because we decided to keep something to balance the tier. that's why broken checks broken is a faulty argument.

I find this to be possibly the most convincing pro-ban argument, and I fully respect it. However, I disagree, and here is why. I feel that while it is a very strong pokemon and if you are truly playing to win hard not to run, it is still checkable. In addition, I feel like it is a healthy presence for the metagame, regardless of being good. It doesn't take too much viability away from anything that would be viable without it, and it adds a lot of viability to pokes that kinda need it, such as Diggersby. Diggersby is a good pokemon due to its STAB EQ and Return coupled with its Huge Power, but its base stats are not amazing. But being able to successfully check Aegis gives it much more viability, but isn't the only thing keeping it viable. Similar case for Hippowdon. Aegis takes some viability away from Mega Gardevoir and the Latis, but not so much that they aren't good anymore. I am personally happy that the Latis are sightly less common. But here are what I feel are the biggest reasons. The first reason is that the metagame feels very balanced. I am a believer in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". The other reason is that being good and common and viable for many teams, i feel, isn't enough to ban, especially considering that the metagame feels fine, and that (in my opinion), Aegis brings some good to the metagame.

this not only follows what i just talked about, but has other flaws. every pokemon is check able. mega kangaskhan had a viable hard counter, which is more than you can say for aegislash. however as you admit pokemon that check aegislash are instantly more viable, how is this not a problem? the fact that aegislash has such a polarizing effect on the tier that its answers are more viable, is just another example of its overcentralization and how much it skews the tier. really it's not about 'i don't like this pokemon being more/less viable', like as you say with the latis, it's the fact that there are more pokemon that aegislash restricts than it makes better, which is part of the reason for the cookie-cutter teams of this metagame. for example almost every stall team has spdef gliscor now, guess what all those teams look mostly the same. offense utilizes pokemon like bisharp, landorus, and diggersby which lead to really similar offensive builds. that's because aegislash punishes very different builds.

 

[RoyalDispenser]

RoyalDispenser let me knock down your points, but let me acknowledge the correct ones: chesnaught and venusaur do counter

Now let me knock down your points


Rotom-W are physically defensive and good sets don't run trick. Bisharp and Weavile are checks, and Weavile doesn't even pass as a check because of King's Shield. Next, this is probably the most misinformed paragraph i have ever seen in this thread:

It requires stealth rocks on the field to OHKO mandibuzz.. the one pokemon head smash is ran for. It needs a little team support to successfully lure not to mention mandibuzz can just roost or knock off if it gets a free switch in. Easy to revenge kill should it manage to succeed in the job. This set works a little worse than cloyster.. While typing maybe the advantage.. cloyster can easily shell smash, outspeed, and successfully sweep (sometimes..) late game.. difference is cloyster has better defenses to setup.. If this set was aegislash's only set, it'd be a lower rank than cloyster rather than S-rank.. which honestly is a really bad argument to bring up trying to bring him all the way up to ubers and out of our current meta.

Also with this set, running no defenses also let's more things OHKO it.. it gives aegislash a method of killing it's only true checks/counters.. while leaving it wide open to others. This makes him a frail glass cannon.. infact chandelure and porygon-z could be comparable and even outclass this set.

Anything fast like jolteon, greninja, crobat, etc.. don't care for a +2 life orb shadow sneak and can easily revenge kill it. Some NSE hits can even OHKO it..

Let me just tear it down. You use swords dance on the Mandibuzz switch in, and because Mandibuzz runs bulk>speed, it doesn't outspeed it after the Swords Dance. Mandibuzz dead. Next, the entire line is ridden with false facts. Cloyster never sweeps against a good team. not to mention, its typing and bulk is ass. it only has better physical defense, and literally its only resist is ice. so that bulk is USELESS. add to the fact its HP and SDef are abysmal, it can't setup OR sweep. not to mention, Aegislash's attack and overall base power of its moves is higher than cloyster. and its defensive stats are still 300+ while uninvested in shield form. it uses those absurd defensive stats to set up, and then it uses the speed and power to break OR sweep. not to mention, it can do this consistently throughout the match, so it can break something and do a late game sweep later. and chandelure and porygon Z are not even close to comparable to Aegislash. Chandelure is frailer and a bit weaker, porygon z is frail and can't switch in. now with your reasoning you'll say uninvested aegislash can't switch in either, but it can due to great uninvested bulk and resistances. also, jolteon and crobat aren't anywhere near viable, and for the record, jolteon dies to +2 shadow sneak. so does crobat. Greninja can't switch in, and you seem to be forgetting Aegislash isn't a one man army, it has teammates it's supporting and in turn support it.

Subject 18 Edit: Lets be a little less rude.

"you seem to be forgetting Aegislash isn't a one man army, it has teammates it's supporting and in turn support it"

It's not wish passing.. setting up screens.. hazards.. baton pass, healing with heal bell, or statusing other pokemon (bar toxic) I wouldn't call him a support pokemon whatsoever.. Teammates that support it is one thing but it's not supporting teammates other than being a switch in to take resisted hits.. which anything can do.

Porygon-z is frail.. yes.. but since aegislash won't be having king's shield in the set you listed, and it has high Special attack as well as speed, it can do just about the same thing as aegislash, and do it faster. Not to mention P-Z only has 1 weakness opposed to 4.. but as I said in another arguement which used arcanine as an example.. it ain't OU so pointless arguement, which I forgot about. My bad. Chandelure on the other hand can find many many switch in oppertunties that aegislash set would beg for.. like not having to worry about burn, has the same ghost typing immunites, can run balloon if you wish, and 80 base speed at max speed.. or even scarf can actually be viable.

My comparison with cloyster is that cloyster has a good ability, a way to boost it's attack, and it can boost it's speed.. something aegislash can't, and has ice shard like aegislash has shadow sneak.. the problem is aegislash can't boost it speed.. nor does 60/50/50 bulk compare to cloyser's 50/180../45.. bulk.. sure bad on the special side but it's the same for slash reguardless.. not to mention some run sash. Since that aegislash set you listed will NOT have king's shield.. and it will NOT be invested in bulk.. it will not find oppertunities to get to +4 or +6.. not to mention that if he manages +2.. and kills mandibuzz he's already half dead and still getting life orb damage.. while not being able to 2HKO faster threats with his weak priority. This is why cloyster is consitured bad.. he can sweep, but he'll only live for so long whether it's wearing him down or even revenge killing with priority. Aegislash will be forced out or killed in this situation.. causing him:

A: kill mandibuzz, get revenge killed and be left at 50% HP
B: Switch out, lose SD boost, and get killed on switching into something else as death fodder
C: After killing mandibuzz, do as much damage as possible with SS and stay death fodder.

This would be the same scenario with cloyster.. only problem is cloyster is harder as it will be +2 Spe AND atk AND SpA.. which aegislash will just have Atk..

You lose a mon to kill a mon pretty much for this aegislash's case. Even if your whole team has like 2 pokemon left at low health.. and aegislash is the last one.. and his threats are all dead, he may be able to sweep you but the same can be said for alot of pokemon.. like bisharp in the corner, free to sucker punch and save the game.

Last gen IIRC crobat was BL and jolteon was OU.. My mistake if they dropped this gen.

 

[chimpact]

You really fail to see what a lure is.

do you really think mandibuzz is staying in on cloyster or skarmory on a heatran? Aegislash lures them in because of course, skarmory and mandibuzz can generally take iron head / secret sword. This is just one of its potential sets and it doesnt matter if aegislash is at half health because it skarm is weakened, then a teammate like SD lando T can put in work.

for the record, i dont care if aegi is banned or not because ORAS is around the corner and could change things completely with move tutors and new megas.

also lets stop comparing aegislash to other mons, especially cloyster....

 

[Comorant]

"you seem to be forgetting Aegislash isn't a one man army, it has teammates it's supporting and in turn support it"

It's not wish passing.. setting up screens.. hazards.. baton pass, healing with heal bell, or statusing other pokemon (bar toxic) I wouldn't call him a support pokemon whatsoever.. Teammates that support it is one thing but it's not supporting teammates other than being a switch in to take resisted hits.. which anything can do.

Porygon-z is frail.. yes.. but since aegislash won't be having king's shield in the set you listed, and it has high Special attack as well as speed, it can do just about the same thing as aegislash, and do it faster. Not to mention P-Z only has 1 weakness opposed to 4.. but as I said in another arguement which used arcanine as an example.. it ain't OU so pointless arguement, which I forgot about. My bad. Chandelure on the other hand can find many many switch in oppertunties that aegislash set would beg for.. like not having to worry about burn, has the same ghost typing immunites, can run balloon if you wish, and 80 base speed at max speed.. or even scarf can actually be viable.

My comparison with cloyster is that cloyster has a good ability, a way to boost it's attack, and it can boost it's speed.. something aegislash can't, and has ice shard like aegislash has shadow sneak.. the problem is aegislash can't boost it speed.. nor does 60/50/50 bulk compare to cloyser's 50/180../45.. bulk.. sure bad on the special side but it's the same for slash reguardless.. not to mention some run sash. Since that aegislash set you listed will NOT have king's shield.. and it will NOT be invested in bulk.. it will not find oppertunities to get to +4 or +6.. not to mention that if he manages +2.. and kills mandibuzz he's already half dead and still getting life orb damage.. while not being able to 2HKO faster threats with his weak priority. This is why cloyster is consitured bad.. he can sweep, but he'll only live for so long whether it's wearing him down or even revenge killing with priority. Aegislash will be forced out or killed in this situation.. causing him:

A: kill mandibuzz, get revenge killed and be left at 50% HP
B: Switch out, lose SD boost, and get killed on switching into something else as death fodder
C: After killing mandibuzz, do as much damage as possible with SS and stay death fodder.

This would be the same scenario with cloyster.. only problem is cloyster is harder as it will be +2 Spe AND atk AND SpA.. which aegislash will just have Atk..

You lose a mon to kill a mon pretty much for this aegislash's case. Even if your whole team has like 2 pokemon left at low health.. and aegislash is the last one.. and his threats are all dead, he may be able to sweep you but the same can be said for alot of pokemon.. like bisharp in the corner, free to sucker punch and save the game.

Last gen IIRC crobat was BL and jolteon was OU.. My mistake if they dropped this gen.

I think you're confused as far as what can be considered supporting teammates. It can Pivot, Spinblock, force switches, pursuit trap, and even revenge kill with priority. Support doesn't mean slapping down some screens and passing healing, supporting means being a big asset to the rest of your team through all sorts of utilities.

Also you can't even compare most of those Pokemon to Aegislash.

Edit: In fact while we're at it what does Porygon Z have to do with Aegislash? Aegislash has the ability to take hits. Aegislash has a fantastic typing both offensively and defensively. Aegislash isn't murdered by most priority. Aegislash could take a super effective hit and resists a buttload while having 3 immunities. Porygon Z gets revenge killed by something faster because its frail or blown up by priority which is everywhere.

 

[Toljik]

At least with Gardevoir and Mawile we know they're dangerous with Aegislash gone. But if Aegislash is truly too powerful, we shouldn't keep it in OU just because Conkeldurr could get Scrappy in ORAS or something. The new metagame could hurt Aegislash, or it could make it even more powerful. If it's necessary, we could always retest it.

 

[Arcanine is Regal]

I feel like this thread has really derailed, and I'm kind of sad to see so much hate and controversy going around.

I think the bottom line is that Aegislash is a controversial pokemon since it cannot be countered reliably by almost any pokemon in OU. However, by maintaining the ability to destroy any of its counters, it loses coverage, items, or the standard sets that make it great.

Lures have existed in pokemon for a long time. But Aegislash takes it to a new level. However, I think by utilizing team preview and proper scouting, you can predict Aegislash's set or lose one pokemon that counter with the appropriate pokemon. This isn't much different than many other lures.

In reviewing this thread, it's become even more obvious to me that Aegislash should not be banned, the people constructing pro-ban arguments and the amount of controversy in the thread makes me think it would be better to keep it around in the meta. It just feels like the pro-ban people are pretty biased with how much hate and anger is coming from their side of the argument. This makes me worried about their potential position.

I dont really see what you are saying, Everytime a suspect thread is almost over the thread starts turning to cancer. All the arguments have been made and both sides have decent ones, but then it just turns to a bunch of people bickering over stupid irrelevant points. But dont use a few trolls/idiots as an excuse to say all the pro-ban people have no idea what they are talking about so we should keep Aegislash. That is incredibly naive of you to even say, honestly your post is just as cancerous as the obvious trolls. I mean first off do you really expect good arguments after 50 pages? I literally cant even phrase how ridiculous I think this claim is

the people constructing pro-ban arguments and the amount of controversy in the thread makes me think it would be better to keep it around in the meta. It just feels like the pro-ban people are pretty biased with how much hate and anger is coming from their side of the argument

This is perhaps the worst anti-ban argument I have heard, all you are doing is manipulating the situation to make it seem like the end suspect thread trolls(that always come out at the end) are representative of the pro-ban side. There have been very convincing pro-ban posts that I have seen go completely unanswered, we have given substantial reason to ban Aegislash and I feel the anti-ban people are really just being lazy and dont want to work on the tier after Aegislash is banned. If we want to truly have a "perfect" meta, it is OBVIOUS that Aegislash needs to leave and then we have more work to do once he is gone, but if you are content with having an OK meta that is completely matchup reliant and riddled with 50/50s then we can go ahead and keep Aegislash I really do not care at this point. But if youre reason to keep Aegislash is "I dont like this particular group of people that happen to be pro-ban, so now I have to vote to keep him" well then

This makes me worried about YOUR potential position.

 

[InfinityX000]

this not only follows what i just talked about, but has other flaws. every pokemon is check able. mega kangaskhan had a viable hard counter, which is more than you can say for aegislash. however as you admit pokemon that check aegislash are instantly more viable, how is this not a problem? the fact that aegislash has such a polarizing effect on the tier that its answers are more viable, is just another example of its overcentralization and how much it skews the tier. really it's not about 'i don't like this pokemon being more/less viable', like as you say with the latis, it's the fact that there are more pokemon that aegislash restricts than it makes better, which is part of the reason for the cookie-cutter teams of this metagame. for example almost every stall team has spdef gliscor now, guess what all those teams look mostly the same. offense utilizes pokemon like bisharp, landorus, and diggersby which lead to really similar offensive builds. that's because aegislash punishes very different builds.

The pokes that check aegis become more viable, but the same is true for pokes that check other threats. While Aegis doesn't have a hard counter like Mega Kang, Aegis has so many checks and a hard counter for each set and is outdamaged by Mega Kang. Mega Kang has good attack, high base power STAB, Fake Out, and a better offensive movepool. Aegis should not be compared to Mega Kang, ore any other pokes like Mega Luke or Rotom-W. Aegis doesn't restrict pokemon that much. It restricts pokemon a lot only if the team can't deal with Aegislash, but there are so many checks that it is very easy to. It is your fault if your team has no good Aegis check. Really, if you want to run the Latis, Mega Garde, Mega Medicham, or something else, run a poke that checks every conventional set, such as SDef Gliscor or Bisharp. Cookie cutter teams were always a thing. So, aegis puts some pressure on teams, but it isn't the only pokemon that does. Heck, why not just ban all the S-ranks and a quarter of the A+ ranks? And in no way does Aegis punish different builds. All your team needs is one of very many pokemon to work against Aegis. I think you are overestimating aegis or underestimating the checks or underestimating players, or some combination.

 

[Galaco]

Mega Kang has good attack, high base power STAB, Fake Out, and a better offensive movepool.

Just, Wat? Aegislash has 150/150 stats on attacking plus has access to Shadow Sneak for priority, not to mention Sacred Sword to cover up its weaknesses. Better offensive movepool? Aegis has a fantastic movepool overrall. In adition it gets King's Shield which Mega Kanga does not (hell, I'd take KS over fake out any day), you can lower physical mons attack AND get a priority switch to 150/150 defenses.

Aegis overcentralizes the meta. If that isn't ban worthy then idk what is.

 

[Cyrrona]

I completely agree with Aldaron’s assessment of the power creep expanding faster than our ability to respond, but I don’t agree with the conclusions he arrived at about Aegislash. I'm convinced Aegislash is an important—but not offensively overwhelming—tool for dealing with the aforementioned introduction of crazy shit, and I think it has the same sort of cohesive effect on XY OU as Latias did on DPP OU (a reference for anyone that’s been around long enough to experience both). When you remove important resistances from a teambuilder’s arsenal and free up more room for a much wider variety of new offensive threats, our already strained ability to cope degenerates even further. I recognize that there’s a fine line between “keep X because it’s healthy for the metagame” and the fallacious argument of “keep broken X because it checks other broken things,” but the distinction here lies in the relatively narrow power gap between Aegislash and, like, roughly half of the new OU guard. Accusing people of subscribing to the latter argument would be appropriate if someone claimed that, for instance, Mega Lucario should be kept because it checks Mega Kangaskhan. In such a case, both parties are clearly a cut above the rest of the tier in terms of firepower and ability to use it effectively. While Aegislash hits about as hard as OU’s other top threats and has valuable Ghost STAB, it can’t smother everything like the pair in the example I gave. Its low speed and lack of reliable recovery render it far more vulnerable to retaliation in the form of either full-on attacks from the rest of the similarly powerful tier or status (which almost every Aegislash set detests). Knock Off’s obnoxious prevalence in the metagame is another looming hazard Aegislash needs to contend with. Aegislash still poses a prominent offensive and defensive threat thanks to its excellent typing and stat distribution, but I don’t think there’s negligible risk involved in using it, and I don’t think the “reward” for doing so is effortlessly attainable or markedly larger than the payoff for using a number of other OU pokemon. Considering this alongside its vital balancing effect on the metagame (something that’s already been discussed extensively in other posts), I think it’d be a mistake to remove Aegislash now.

Also, I really can’t get behind any of the arguments calling King’s Shield uniquely “uncompetitive.” It’s no less competitive than the mind games associated with Sucker Punch and a bevy of other common “predictions” inherent in the game we play, and it’s impossible to remove these arbitrary player decisions from competitive pokemon. Let’s also not act like running into King’s Shield spells certain doom—it nabs momentum if you’re using a contact move, but it rarely has the potential to decide entire matches until the endgame…and endgames are notoriously full of other hugely consequential “random” decisions by default. It’s also worth mentioning that the move is notably distinct from the banned Swagger—the “50/50” argument was so compelling in that case because Swagger directly handed the opposing pokemon’s chances of doing anything at all over to the RNG, but the same can’t be said this time around. On a related note, Agent Gibbs’s post here does a good job of breaking down a sample King’s Shield matchup and illustrating how such face-offs don’t automatically benefit the Aegislash player.

 

[Srn]

Woah there. If you replace KS, you get killed. Aegis is outsped by so muchand if it has to keep those crappy defenses it doesn't work well at all.

Uh max speed aegislash outspeeds even uninvested arcanine, that's not too shabby. One of aegislash's most effective set, the fast Wallbreaker set, surprises bisharp, 2hko's mandibuzz and chesnaught with flash cannon, and is in general a fantastic set (as seen in boudouche's RMT, a well known and good tour player) Its an amazing set that really does show aegis doesn't need KS.

 

[RoyalDispenser]

Point is on the SD+3 moves set.. aegislash's bulk is hindered and worn down very easily. It's stuck in blade forme and it's only hope of gaining it's bulk back is to switch out and lose it's SD's.

You really fail to see what a lure is.

do you really think mandibuzz is staying in on cloyster or skarmory on a heatran? Aegislash lures them in because of course, skarmory and mandibuzz can generally take iron head / secret sword. This is just one of its potential sets and it doesnt matter if aegislash is at half health because it skarm is weakened, then a teammate like SD lando T can put in work.

for the record, i dont care if aegi is banned or not because ORAS is around the corner and could change things completely with move tutors and new megas.

also lets stop comparing aegislash to other mons, especially cloyster....

While aegislash can lure bisharp in for a sacred sword (which I'm sure any bisharp user would see coming).. killing itself for mandibuzz and letting skarmory setup (which can whirlwind your own setup) would not be a lure.. instead that would be more of a desperate atempt to KO something while KO'ing yourself.. without king's shield that leaves it with 60/50/50 bulk with 60 base speed.. and while invested it may seem to outspeed pokemon like arcanine.. what arcanine, who's not OU anyway, wouldn't be invested in speed as well?

Let's look at the priority damage done TO aegislash..

252+ Atk Choice Band Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Blade: 204-240 (78.1 - 91.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (Add prior life orb damage/head smash recoil)

252+ Atk Technician Mega Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Blade: 104-123 (39.8 - 47.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (Add that to stealth rocks and prior life orb damage which is a 2HKO. Not to mention it can swords dance)

252+ Atk Choice Band Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Blade: 140-165 (53.6 - 63.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Aegislash-Blade Shadow Sneak vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Blade: 254-300 (97.3 - 114.9%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO

These are just some users of priority.. ones that are resisted (bar other aegislash) and he is easily KO'd by them..

 

[chimpact]

Point is on the SD+3 moves set.. aegislash's bulk is hindered and worn down very easily. It's stuck in blade forme and it's only hope of gaining it's bulk back is to switch out and lose it's SD's.

While aegislash can lure bisharp in for a sacred sword (which I'm sure any bisharp user would see coming).. killing itself for mandibuzz and letting skarmory setup (which can whirlwind your own setup) would not be a lure.. instead that would be more of a desperate atempt to KO something while KO'ing yourself.. without king's shield that leaves it with 60/50/50 bulk with 60 base speed.. and while invested it may seem to outspeed pokemon like arcanine.. what arcanine, who's not OU anyway, wouldn't be invested in speed as well?

Let's look at the priority damage done TO aegislash..

252+ Atk Choice Band Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Blade: 204-240 (78.1 - 91.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (Add prior life orb damage/head smash recoil)

252+ Atk Technician Mega Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Blade: 104-123 (39.8 - 47.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (Add that to stealth rocks and prior life orb damage which is a 2HKO. Not to mention it can swords dance)

252+ Atk Choice Band Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Blade: 140-165 (53.6 - 63.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Aegislash-Blade Shadow Sneak vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Blade: 254-300 (97.3 - 114.9%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO

These are just some users of priority.. ones that are resisted (bar other aegislash) and he is easily KO'd by them..

i have no idea why you're bringing up irrelevant calcs. aegislash can switch out and be back in his shield form to eat up any of those hits. just because you set up an SD doesnt mean you have to stay in lol.

i think youre really failing to see why i emphasized what a lure was in the first place.

if youre gonna post in these forums and use buzzwords, at least know what they are please. If you get to take out mandibuzz or skarmory at the cost of half of aegislash's hp, thats huge for the aegislash user. They got to take out a mon they purposely used that set for to help support another pokemon on their team.

 

[Agent Gibbs]

Kind of a public service announcement, but...

http://www.smogon.com/smog/issue32/checks-and-counters

If you're going to argue about checks and counters, please read that article first and make sure that you're familiar with the terms. Because since this thread was started, I've seen a ton of conversations where individual users have made it blatantly obvious that they don't really know what the terms mean (and this thread is by no means the first time this sort of thing has happened, so I'm not calling anyone out in particular). It would help solve a lot of confusion and unnecessary bickering if everyone would familiarize themselves with the definitions of "check" and "counter" as used by this site before trying to argue about which Pokemon fall into which category.

 

[Starfall11]

I dont really see what you are saying, Everytime a suspect thread is almost over the thread starts turning to cancer. All the arguments have been made and both sides have decent ones, but then it just turns to a bunch of people bickering over stupid irrelevant points. But dont use a few trolls/idiots as an excuse to say all the pro-ban people have no idea what they are talking about so we should keep Aegislash. That is incredibly naive of you to even say, honestly your post is just as cancerous as the obvious trolls. I mean first off do you really expect good arguments after 50 pages? I literally cant even phrase how ridiculous I think this claim is
This is perhaps the worst anti-ban argument I have heard, all you are doing is manipulating the situation to make it seem like the end suspect thread trolls(that always come out at the end) are representative of the pro-ban side. There have been very convincing pro-ban posts that I have seen go completely unanswered, we have given substantial reason to ban Aegislash and I feel the anti-ban people are really just being lazy and dont want to work on the tier after Aegislash is banned. If we want to truly have a "perfect" meta, it is OBVIOUS that Aegislash needs to leave and then we have more work to do once he is gone, but if you are content with having an OK meta that is completely matchup reliant and riddled with 50/50s then we can go ahead and keep Aegislash I really do not care at this point. But if youre reason to keep Aegislash is "I dont like this particular group of people that happen to be pro-ban, so now I have to vote to keep him" well then

Listen man. I was frustrated with the current arguments people were making on this thread. I already apologized for generalizing my frustrations to all people on the pro-ban side of Aegislash. If you read the posts in the thread, you'd see that I had apologized for that post and admitted it was naïve.

Please don't bring up the 50/50's though. I am not trying to be insulting at all. But a few anti-ban people had successfully explained why Aegislash does not create more 50/50s than most pokemon in the tier. Please read the thread before making ignorant posts. I am sorry if my previous post offended you though, I was venting frustrations and didn't go about it the right way. Hope you can understand.

Thanks,

 

[9 Tales of Ninetales]

I completely agree with Aldaron’s assessment of the power creep expanding faster than our ability to respond, but I don’t agree with the conclusions he arrived at about Aegislash. I'm convinced Aegislash is an important—but not offensively overwhelming—tool for dealing with the aforementioned introduction of crazy shit, and I think it has the same sort of cohesive effect on XY OU as Latias did on DPP OU (a reference for anyone that’s been around long enough to experience both). When you remove important resistances from a teambuilder’s arsenal and free up more room for a much wider variety of new offensive threats, our already strained ability to cope degenerates even further. I recognize that there’s a fine line between “keep X because it’s healthy for the metagame” and the fallacious argument of “keep broken X because it checks other broken things,” but the distinction here lies in the relatively narrow power gap between Aegislash and, like, roughly half of the new OU guard. Accusing people of subscribing to the latter argument would be appropriate if someone claimed that, for instance, Mega Lucario should be kept because it checks Mega Kangaskhan. In such a case, both parties are clearly a cut above the rest of the tier in terms of firepower and ability to use it effectively. While Aegislash hits about as hard as OU’s other top threats and has valuable Ghost STAB, it can’t smother everything like the pair in the example I gave. Its low speed and lack of reliable recovery render it far more vulnerable to retaliation in the form of either full-on attacks from the rest of the similarly powerful tier or status (which almost every Aegislash set detests). Knock Off’s obnoxious prevalence in the metagame is another looming hazard Aegislash needs to contend with. Aegislash still poses a prominent offensive and defensive threat thanks to its excellent typing and stat distribution, but I don’t think there’s negligible risk involved in using it, and I don’t think the “reward” for doing so is effortlessly attainable or markedly larger than the payoff for using a number of other OU pokemon. Considering this alongside its vital balancing effect on the metagame (something that’s already been discussed extensively in other posts), I think it’d be a mistake to remove Aegislash now.

Also, I really can’t get behind any of the arguments calling King’s Shield uniquely “uncompetitive.” It’s no less competitive than the mind games associated with Sucker Punch and a bevy of other common “predictions” inherent in the game we play, and it’s impossible to remove these arbitrary player decisions from competitive pokemon. Let’s also not act like running into King’s Shield spells certain doom—it nabs momentum if you’re using a contact move, but it rarely has the potential to decide entire matches until the endgame…and endgames are notoriously full of other hugely consequential “random” decisions by default. It’s also worth mentioning that the move is notably distinct from the banned Swagger—the “50/50” argument was so compelling in that case because Swagger directly handed the opposing pokemon’s chances of doing anything at all over to the RNG, but the same can’t be said this time around. On a related note, Agent Gibbs’s post here does a good job of breaking down a sample King’s Shield matchup and illustrating how such face-offs don’t automatically benefit the Aegislash player.

Cool cool, I like this, you’re saying the right things, haha. I don’t really know what to say in response to Aegi’s shortcomings. I agree with most of what you say there, And yeah it’s not above other Pokémon on the same level Kangaskhanite or Lucarionite were/are. Of course it’s still in the top, like 3, Pokémon in the current OU and I think everything I said about its “Uber-like” affect on the tier still holds up.

So back to this “uncompetitive King’s Shield” concept… yeah I think it’s a little extreme to call it uncompetitive. I’ve already said myself that yes these aren’t 50/50s, I’ve read Agent Gibb’s post which was really well thought out and explained. And the truth is that most all guessing games in Pokémon can be weighed out by the risk v reward of each option making it easier to guess what your opponent is going to do. This definitely is why King’s Shield isn’t just plain old uncompetitive like a true 50/50 Swagger coin flip. I do stand my ground that it is a level worse than the typical guessing game found in regular play (like this many page old Zapados, Mamoswine, Infernap example.) It’s different from Sucker Punch too. Sucker Punch is used for priority. The majority of sucker punch users aren’t doing it for a nice STAB attack or something. It’s being used to take down a fast Pokémon that otherwise poses a threat to them. There’s really very very few situations were sucker punch degrades to mind game that benefits the user. Anything that is faster and can cripple with status knows to do that anyway. And anything that uses status moves to try to avoid the sucker punch knows it is going to lose to the sucker punch anyway so they potentially have to status around to lower PP and then maybe randomly pick one of 8 turns to try attack maybe. In other words sucker punch mind games really only hurt the user of Sucker punch, when they screw up they’re the one who gave the enemy a free turn/ got hit first. The sucker punch victim can only better their position by dicking around in a match up that they lose most of the time thanks to priority. Kings Shield however totally benefits the user. It turns what could have been a fatal matchup around in Agei’s favor, Right? If Aegi had a “sucker punch mind game” feature to it then it would be morel like a bunch of Pokémon Aegislash usually beats with Shadow Sneak can sometime come out on top if they guess right for 8 or 6 o 4 or 3 turns in a row depending on when you lose your cool and click a different move… it harms Aegi more than the enemy… So no King Sheild’s not strictly uncompetitive, it’s not really a 50/50, you can weight out Aegislash’s options and predict, but I will stand my ground that it is unlike any other guessing game anywhere else in Pokémon. It’s more likely to benefit Aegislash and more reliably generated than is a general play mind game and it actually benefits the user unlike a sucker punch mind game.

Right now I see very few Anti-ban people try to argue that Aegislash isn’t the center of OU. They are saying things more like: Removing Aegi will upset what is a currently well balanced tier and will possibly add too much variety with too many possible threats, thus making teambuilding more strained. This is a concern that, once again, Agent Gibbs has also gone out of his way to enlighten us on (that guy’s totally on top of things) here’s his first post on the topic but it' short and sweat so scroll down because the discussion goes on a little while. It’s definitely worth reading though because it teaches a valuable lesson that variety =/= good after a certain amount of it.

So do we really think Aegi's removal brings a harmful amount of variety? What are all these threats that will come in? The big name ones I see a lot are Mega Medicam, Mega Gardevoir and Mega Hearcross… basically a bunch of Megas that hate ghosts. After that I think that most of the things Aegi holds back aren’t things that scare people because they’ve typically been in balanced OUs before so why wouldn’t they be now? But right off the bat 2 of those 3 scary newcomers should still spend most of their time under rocks thanks to Gale Wings. And all three of them have trouble with Aegilsash simply because it’s a high stat ghost. But like I already said if you’re team building it’s REALLY hard to justify not using Aegislash, which makes it hard to justify using any other ghost. Wouldn’t Aegislash’s banning result in higher usage of other ghosts an make it still not too hard to check these aforementioned Megas? Plus none of them break base 100 speed... 100 is good and all but they've all got signs that read "revenge kill me" taped to their ass and Heracross is actually bending over. To be honest I'm not totally convinced that the Metagame will suddenly be unable to handle these three things. And like I already said most everything else has already been part of a stable OU.

Of course all that is just my own poorly educated guess at the future. The truth is that beyond our experiences on the suspect ladder we really don’t have a strong grasp on the changes that occur. And I think it would be better to base our decisions on what we know (Aegislash is too dominating) than on a uncertain future we are afraid of (I’m worried a Mega I don’t want to deal with might be more common)